quietly dropping 1914 altogether---its possible--after all--they dropped the 7000 year long creative day nonsense. i only found that out when i joined exj sites a couple of years back.
Is the WTS and the JW's going to collapse in 2014?
by braincleaned 66 Replies latest jw friends
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LV101
NO, but certainly LOVE your question and what a hope.
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blondie
The WTS survived 1925 and 1975 and those times were difficult, in the years following 1975, the WTS dropped 2% a year, but eventually bounced back having weeded out the naysayers and disciplined the doubters that remained, as well as those who came in and had no personal history. The WTS has been careful not to promote a date like that so far.
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vanyell
I would agree with blondie that it will be hard to say as to when WTS will collapse. Most of the JWs nowadays have been thoroughly indoctrinated that the "new light" has cleansed out the old stuff and not to focus on/or give importance to the past history of failures and idiocy.
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Finkelstein
The reason in my opinion that 1914 will be dropped all together is basically because generation after generations have died since 1914.
If you take into account the fact that the longevity of the human life span is not much greater than 100 years.
Once you go past 100 + years you present a logical problem. What would the WTS. say after lets say 2034 , accumulating to 120 years ?
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Finkelstein
Bare in mind that the leaders of the WTS. can change doctrines at will to sustain their operations.
It all depends upon how viable sounding the newly created doctrines come out.
They've used in the past the New Light policy together with the Food at the Proper Time and one can assume they will once again.
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ScenicViewer
"But I have a hunch that there could be a massive exodus from the Organisation. Especially those who know the WT history well..."
The problem is, there aren't very many Witnesses that know the true past of the Organization. Watchtower has been masterful at revising it's history.
I believe this is changing, but not because the 100th anniversary of 1914 in near.
The older generations of Witnesses had no easy access to what the Organization was really teaching prior to 1914, 1925, etc. After each failure there was an exodus of people from the religion, but the Society would later spin that into "Jehovah cleansed his earthly Organization,' resulting in most Witnesses today thinking those who left were 'over-zealous,' or they 'misunderstood' what the Society was teaching, or they were only 'serving for a date,' and needed to be weeded out.
It's changing because the younger generation is tech savvy, and they have easy access to amazing amounts of information via the internet. In spite of strong warnings from the Society not to search for information about Watchtower's past history, many do it, and more will in the future. They are learning the true history of the Organization, as are many of us older ones now, and it will only snow-ball as time passes.
Watchtower is reaching a point where it can no longer cover up it's sins. Will the religion end? They almost never do. Will it eventually decline? Absolutely. It will be interesting to see how much, and how fast. Watchtower's struggle is just beginning.
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SweetBabyCheezits
I think Scenic nails it. I'd bet a few fence-sitters may be waiting to see if anything happens before 2014 and after that, they'll bail. But I think the vast majority will decline slowly as old members die and teenage/twenty-something born-ins hit the Internet. But I suspect the same thing will happen to Christianity in general, too.
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ScenicViewer
"...I suspect the same thing will happen to Christianity in general, too."
I don't look into other religions much, but from what I've read on this forum Mormons and Scientologists are struggling too, because if the internet.
I wonder about Seventh Day Adventists and larger groups like Baptists and Catholics.
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MyLastDays
I agree the WTS will be around awhile. But I do wonder about the psychological effects of 2014 coming and going. I just turned 40 and I remember well the WTS stressing 1914 in the literature and most witnesses young and old didnt seem to notice the 1995 change. Has anyone else noticed that alot of witnesses still believe that the 1914 generation will not pass away before the end? There have been so many changes but the average witless doesnt seem to notice.